PA Photos and Documents

This collection consists of selected images taken by East Petersburg, Pennsylvania photographer Dennis L. Hughes of Amish life and culture in the United States with a special emphasis on the Amish in Lancaster County. Images date from the 1980s through the early 2000s. Hughes first became interested in the Amish when he was a young boy growing up in Lewistown, Pennsylvania near the Big Valley area. The physical collection housed in the Hess Archives contains over 18,000 images, primarily color slides. Subjects include buggy styles, agricultural work, mud sales, Amish schools, Amish children, and more. The collection includes photographs taken for Dr. Donald Kraybill’s books Amish Enterprise and The Riddle of Amish Culture. Amish culture typically does not permit posing for photographs, with many groups feeling that it promotes vanity and individualism. In the case of these photographs, Hughes made certain that the people shown were comfortable with the way they were photographed. He used a telephoto lens for most of his photographs, allowing them to be taken from far away without intruding.